


Diplomacy or Something

by literal_garbage



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Consent Less Dubious as Story Continues, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Star Wars: Bloodline, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Prisoner of War, also some smut, mutual respect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-03 10:14:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16324292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literal_garbage/pseuds/literal_garbage
Summary: Grand Admiral Thrawn, recently recovered from parts unknown by the First Order, captures Leia Organa, leader of the new Resistance organization that's got his superiors in a snit. Thrawn makes Leia an offer she doesn't entirely understand and definitely doesn't like, but doesn't feel at liberty to refuse.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In general I'm super embarrassed to have written this, and consider it to be a low-quality, uneven fic you probably shouldn't read. There was ONE scene I got stuck in my head and I built a whole dumb fic around it, and these two are such a goddamned rarepair that I feel I ought to just release this weirdness into the wild and let it do its thing. You'll notice I made a whole new account for it though ;)

Leia Organa had been doing politics and diplomacy long enough to know when she’d been backed into a corner. But in this case, it didn’t require said long life experience, as her physical body had been backed into a literal corner over the course of the negotiation. Such as it was.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand, Senator. Neither the First Order power structure nor my people share the same reservations about treatment of prisoners of war as the Republic, Rebellion, or your new Resistance. I am bound by no such stricture.”

“But - but surely after years of exposure to human cultures - ”

“Not all human cultures are like your home planet. As you know. And the ones with which I am most intimately familiar would not deign to spare a thought for anything I happened to do to the likes of you.”

Leia sighed and slumped. “Are you honestly telling me, Grand Admiral Thrawn, that you’re offering to turn a blind eye to the Resistance’s activities in the Outer Rim for the time being in exchange for sexual favors? From _me_?”

“That is not what I said.”

“That was what it sounded like.”

“Perhaps I should speak more slowly.”

“Please. Because I don’t understand what about what I just said didn’t capture _exactly_ the proposition you just made to me.”

Thrawn paused, giving Leia a moment to appreciate just how terrifying it was to finally be in the physical presence of the Empire’s, and now the First Order’s, most notorious living tactician and superior officer. She’d heard tales for years of the smooth blue skin, the glowing red eyes that obscured his pupils and made it thus impossible to tell what he was looking at, the sinister monotone voice - but the rumors had nothing on the reality. Nobody had told her how huge he was, for one thing. Of course, few people in Leia’s acquaintance were quite as short as she was.

“Let me be clear. I have the authority to claim you, for the crime of treason, as a shipboard slave and use your body however I please. Do you follow?”

Stunned by this blunt but undeniably true statement, Leia nodded.

“This is how the Navy works where treason is concerned. Has always worked. Regardless of who is in charge, regardless of whether we work under the auspices of an Empire or a Republic or whatever you prefer to call the First Order, under the command of which I currently serve. I owe you nothing in exchange for this. I would be perfectly within the rules of my position to torture you in any way that entertained me until you told me where your cohort of traitors is hiding out, then throw you out the airlock. Is that clear?”

Leia nodded again.

“Instead, I propose the following. You use your finely honed social and diplomatic skills to convince me you’re actually interested in being with me. Drawn to me, if you will. In return, I expect to be conveniently beguiled and distracted by your myriad charms, and your friends will hopefully take the opportunity to make their getaway to some other base you’ve never heard of in the meantime. Who knows? Perhaps someday you’ll even manage to escape.”

It took all of Leia’s recently mentioned diplomatic skills not to let her mouth drop open in shock. “But - but _why_?”

“My reasons are my own. And then again, perhaps I’ll use that airlock after all.” He was silent for half a second, then continued briskly. “I have a number of other matters that require my attention. I will give you a standard day to consider the matter. In the event that you decide to take me up on this highly unconventional offer of conditional clemency, I trust you will puzzle out a way to notify me that doesn’t involve any explicit negotiation.” Thrawn left the room without sparing her another glance. Leia didn’t even have time to point out that, in fact, none of what he’d said had contradicted her earlier summary, not really.

Leia sat down heavily on the bench that doubled as a pathetic excuse for a bed in the brig of the _Iron Lynx_. “What the _kriff_ , though,” she exhaled.

\--

Leia had a long, sleepless night ahead of her. She wished she’d had anyone, anyone at all, to talk to about this unexpected offer of Thrawn’s. On the one hand, she acknowledged that of course, he could force her into indefinite sex slavery. That was indeed how the Navy did things; in the best of times, they’d been a law unto themselves since the Clone Wars, and it wasn’t currently the best of times. And apparently it wasn’t so far from how they did things on whatever planet he was from that he found it in any way abhorrent to demand this nonconsensual arrangement of her.

But Leia couldn’t get her head around the idea that he wanted her to act like she _liked_ it. How twisted was that? Leia had been a slave before, blessedly briefly, but she’d never acted as though she felt anything but loathing for her frankly abhorrent master, and he hadn’t expected that of her. He got off on her unwillingness, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with a coercion situation with someone who seemed to get off on being wanted. Was it something she could do? For the Resistance? Her own life?

Who was she kidding? Her options were as follows:

\- Pretend to find Thrawn irresistible, with the possibility of maybe someday getting out of here

\- Torture, probably creative, probably very destructive to the Resistance, then airlock

She didn’t have to comm Han to know what he’d say. Of course he’d tell her to act like she’d never acted before. He’d forgive her in a heartbeat. She just wasn’t sure if she could follow through.

A younger Leia wouldn’t have been able to. But an older, wiser, more cynical Leia? A Leia more in control of her emotional reactions, more able to play a long game? Maybe. Maybe she could sell this performance.

She wished she had a recording of their conversation to review. What on earth was Thrawn up to? She’d heard so many different stories of the way he planned every scenario so that all the variables were sewn up tight before he arrived on the scene. Every time Rebel cells thought they’d put one over on Thrawn, it had turned out he’d had them right where he wanted them after all. What was his angle? What was he using this for?

Suddenly it hit her. Of course, she realized with a sigh. It was for propaganda. It had to be.

So her options were as follows:

\- Involuntary star in romance-of-the-century holodrama with most feared officer in First Order Navy

\- Torture, probably creative, probably very destructive to the Resistance, then airlock

If only she had some way to contact Han. It would be a morale hit to the rest of the Resistance, but she didn’t think most of them would believe it. It might affect recruitment a little bit, but ultimately at this point everyone knew she was Darth Vader’s daughter and her loyalties were therefore always suspect to anyone who didn’t know her personally. The Resistance wouldn't and couldn't rise or fall on Leia Organa's reputation.

But Han. Han would have a hard time. Han, sweet Han, it would be hard to imagine him seeing images of her smiling at the man who’d perpetrated so many massacres in their enemies’ name back in the day. They’d argued the last time they’d seen each other, and he’d run off in a snit on some fool errand with Lando, to return who knew when. But she knew Han would try to rescue her when he found out she'd been captured.

And Leia believed in her heart of hearts that Han wouldn’t really believe it either. And maybe Leia could reach out with the Force to Luke - see if it was possible to relay a message? It wasn’t something to depend on, but a thin thread of hope was better than none.

And so it was that the following evening, when the door of her cell slid open, Leia got up as regal as her mother had ever been, with a pair of outreached hands and a smile for Grand Admiral Thrawn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so if you happen to be the kind of exacting nerd who wants to know, this is mostly I think canon compatible (barring new stuff that comes up in the new Resistance TV show, who knows) except that Thrawn was recovered by the First Order sometime around when Bloodline takes place. FTR, I do not address where he was for the events of the OT, or what happened to Ezra during that period. There's a handful of other deviations I've made on purpose (Han's still driving the Millennium Falcon, for one) but man canon is big and weird and frankly SUPER hard to keep track of when it comes to my boy Thrawn. If I mess up let me know :)


	2. Chapter 2

“Grand Admiral. So lovely to see you again.” She briefly pondered kissing him on the cheek before realizing there was no way she could do it gracefully given their height difference.

She was rewarded with a smile so brief and so tiny she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. “Senator,” he replied, bowing down to kiss her hand. “Will you join me in my quarters for dinner?” He offered his elbow. She idly speculated whether these were all mannerisms he’d picked up from humans, or if his people had similar customary gestures for these sorts of situations. She racked her brain trying to remember where Thrawn was from originally. He’d only recently resurfaced after spending the last several years missing and assumed dead as far as any of her intel sources knew, and she’d been meaning to review her files on him but hadn’t yet found the time. At some point, long in the past, she had known a lot about Grand Admiral Thrawn, but now she found herself trying in vain to recall whether his native planet started with a ‘C’ or an ’S’.

“Lead the way,” Leia replied with another smile as she looped her hand through the crook of his arm. It had been such a long time since she’d had to do this song-and-dance with someone she hated so thoroughly, and she was out of practice. But she had occasionally managed it, back in her princess days, though never for very long. Luckily, acting like a fancy lady with fancy manners was rather like getting back behind the controls of an X-Wing. Even if it had been a few years, it was coming back fast. “Tell me, how has your day been?”

“Busy,” he replied shortly. The guards of the cell block looked straight ahead as Leia, in full prison jumpsuit but carrying herself like royalty, sailed out on Thrawn’s arm. “Yours?”

“Contemplative,” she replied honestly.

“Ah. It is always illuminating to spend a day in thought. I do it whenever I get the chance.”

“Depends on the thought, Grand Admiral.”

“Of course.”

Leia had begun to wonder if he was taking a deliberately circuitous route to make it hard for her to memorize the ship’s floor plan when they came to a stop in front of a nondescript door. Thrawn inserted his code cylinder and the door slid open with a hiss. He told an unseen bodyguard called Tilikh to stand down, but remain on alert. Ominous.

The antechamber was bare as the day it was built. “Please remove your shoes,” Thrawn said quietly, removing his own and opening a cupboard that contained a shoe rack with six pairs of seemingly identical black dress shoes in mint condition. “Leave them on the floor,” he clarified to her. Then, “This way,” and he opened a door for her.

A familiar smell drifted into Leia’s nose, one she was having a bit of trouble placing. Slow cooked nerf, star anise, plus just a hint of burnt sugar, and suddenly Leia put it together. “That can’t be nerf tail soup I’m smelling.”

“In the Crevasse City style. Yes.”

“With _raisins_?”

“Tell me, Senator, would it be in the Crevasse City style without raisins?”

“Please, Grand Admiral, I haven’t been a senator for some time. Call me Leia. I haven’t had this since - well. Since the days when they used to call me ‘Princess’, I suppose.”

Thrawn observed a surprisingly respectful silence before he continued. “I thought it might put you at ease to serve a food that felt familiar.”

“I appreciate the thought.” Truth be told, it threw her more off balance, reminding her again how much more he probably knew about her than she knew about him. Was the menace there intentional?

“I took the liberty of obtaining both emerald wine and Corellian brown ale. I understand both pair nicely with nerf tail soup.” Okay, the menace there was _definitely_ intentional. Next she expected the cheese course to feature cheeses from all the planets where the Resistance currently had bases or shipyards, followed by aperitifs from systems where the Rebel fleet had been defeated.

“The ale, please.” Leia wasn’t even certain what message this choice was sending. Was it “I haven’t forgotten my husband?” Or “here I am, profaning the memory of my marriage?” or perhaps just “I don’t want to be any more intoxicated than I need to be, so I’ll choose the less alcoholic of my drink options?”

Thrawn opened two bottles of Corellian brown ale and handed her one. She threw caution to the wind and raised her bottle to clink it against his. He reciprocated, and she felt a genuine smile rise to her face. She might have been coerced to be here, and dreading what the evening had in store, but she hadn’t had nerf tail soup in _years,_ though it had once been one of her favorites. Too long spent in various insurgent groups had taught her to savor a good meal where she could find it. He returned the smile with the slight upturn at the very edges of his lips she’d thought she’d imagined before.

“So, Grand Admiral. Tell me what the food is like where you’re from.”

“You would not like it.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Humans don’t, generally.”

“That’s what they say about Mon Calamari food, but I’ve come to appreciate it over the years. Try me.”

Thrawn paused. “My home planet is very cold. For most of the year, venturing to the surface is dangerous to impossible. We rely on a combination of edible fungi and algaes, burrowing animals, preserved crops and game from the brief, chilly summers, and hydroponically farmed vegetables to nourish us. The result is rather bland, generally.”

“You don’t sound like you miss it.”

“For the first few years of eating human food, I was sick almost constantly. The spices and fats were hard for me to digest. But I have since grown accustomed to the broader variety of flavors, yes. I expect I would find the food on Csilla rather dull were I to return.” Leia suppressed a grin - she’d finally managed to get him to remind her of the name of his planet. Next she hoped she could maneuver him into mentioning his species.

“I hate to break it to you, but from what I understand, the food in your standard Imperial mess is about as bland as human food gets.”

“True. But as you can see, I no longer have any obligation to dine in the mess hall.”

“Do you always order meals served in your quarters?”

“Almost always, or in the officers’ briefing room. I find my presence discomfits the crew.”

Leia refrained from making any of the sarcastic comments that popped into her mind. Among the rejected were the following:

\- “You don’t say!”

\- “Considerate of you!”

\- “Can’t imagine why!”

\- “Fun guy like you, really?”

But in the absence of any of her ready retorts, she let the conversation drop and then had to figure out a way to pick it back up again. She picked up her beer and gestured with it. “Do your people drink alcoholic beverages?”

“Not usually. Alcohol does not affect us except in quantities large enough to incapacitate a human. We have a ceremonial liquor distilled from a tuber which we use in bonding ceremonies and - ” Thrawn seemed to search his memory and come up blank. “I am not certain if human societies have a similar ritual. Chr’norgu’tiune is practiced when a chiss consecrates their life to serve our gods or our military.” Victory! With a planet and a species name to work into conversations, Leia felt she wasn’t at such a disadvantage anymore.

“I can’t think of a direct equivalent, but I can think of similar rites from a few planets I’ve visited. Wookiees, for instance, have one that sounds comparable, and I’d probably be equally successful at pronouncing it as I would be to pronouncing yours.” Thrawn effected what Leia supposed passed for a laugh, for him: a short exhalation through his nose that was accompanied by a bright flash from his eyes.

“Not fluent in Shyriiwook, Leia? Surprising. You traveled with a wookiee for some years, did you not?”

“I can understand it all right, but I don’t know many humans who can make themselves understood in Shyriiwook beyond the most basic greetings. It’s very, very difficult to pronounce.”

“I know.” Leia wanted to ask why he knew, but realized she knew the answer. Of course he had dealt with wookiee slaves in the years the Empire had used them to construct the Death Star. She schooled her features to stay as neutral as possible, but she was sure Thrawn had seen her falter.

“My compliments to your chef, Grand Admiral. I assume he was too young to have tried the original of this dish, but the reproduction took me back to my childhood.”

“I will be certain to convey your kind words. Shall we?” He rose, offering his arm again.

“Back to the brig?”

“Of course not. You shall be staying in my guest quarters from now on.”

Her heart sank. For a single, mad moment she wished she’d had a couple more of those Corellian ales, to fortify herself for whatever in the nine hells came next.

\--

The bedroom was plain but appeared comfortable. “Your reputation as an art collector seems rather exaggerated, Grand Admiral,” Leia said. “Neither your dining room nor your guest room feature any art at all.”

“Perhaps one day I’ll show you my personal quarters.” Leia heard an implicit threat and once again questioned whether it was intentional.

“Well - ” Leia started, then stopped short. “Look, I’ll be frank for a second. I have no idea what this evening has in store for me. Can you take the lead? It’s not that I’m - I don’t want to push you in a direction you aren’t interested in going. But I’m perfectly happy to follow where you take me.” She’d never felt so awkward in her life.

“I appreciate the uncertainty of your position. Would it help you if I told you that so far, you’ve performed satisfactorily in your role?”

“Thank you.” Again, she wasn’t sure if she was meant to take this as a compliment or not. It was impossible to be certain, with Thrawn and his near-total lack of affect. “Tell me, Grand Admiral, do you have a last name? Or a first name? What part of your name is Thrawn?”

“My full name is Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

Leia repeated it slowly. “Ah, so Thrawn is sort of scooped out of the middle.”

“Precisely. And what impeccable pronunciation from a beginner! Say it again.”

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” she repeated, more slowly and quietly, looking him straight in the eyes. He closed them for a long second.

“Lovely,” he replied. “Thank you.”

“The least I can offer to a new acquaintance is to attempt to get his name correct.”

“You might be surprised how seldom one encounters that attitude in my line of work.”

“No, I don’t think I would.”

“Perhaps you would not. In any case, please remove your clothing. I would like a good look at your body.”

And so it began, apparently. At least he’d said “please.” Leia did as she was told.

“Lie on the bed. I’ve never seen a human female up so close before.”

“Not interested in humans?”

“Did I say that?”

Men, then. She’d wondered if those rumors were true, and felt vaguely guilty that she'd remembered so few biographical details about the enigmatic Grand Admiral Thrawn but had somehow managed to retain gossip about his sexual orientation in her head for all these years.

He spread her legs gently. The skin of his hands was cool to the touch. She could feel him feeling around, lightly, all curiosity. It tickled, but she resisted the temptation to squirm. “I see. So this is the vagina, here?” He poked at it, barely perceptibly.

“Correct,” she squeaked.

“Does it require that I apply lubrication?”

“Not if you’re doing it right,” she said, surprised at her bravado as he inserted some unknown number of his fingers into her.

“I see. Self-lubricating, how convenient. And - is that a _pseudopenis_?” She couldn’t believe how surprised the man could sound. It was as though a layer of formality had dropped away in an instant.

“What?!”

“This!” He thumbed her clitoris. “What is _this_?”

“Ahh! That’s my clitoris. Please, it’s sensitive.”

“What is it for? Can human females fertilize other females? No, ridiculous. It couldn’t possibly. You couldn’t penetratea woman with this little organ.” 

“It’s for - for fun,” Leia finished lamely.

“Human females have a specific sex organ for _fun_?” Thrawn sounded absolutely scandalized, within the fairly narrow parameters of the expressive range of Thrawn’s voice. “Does it ejaculate?”

“Mine never has. But I’ve heard it’s possible. Or, well, something ejaculates. I don’t think it comes out the tip like a man’s.”

“ _Fascinating_.” Thrawn sounded as genuinely delighted as it was possible for Thrawn to be by this discovery. “To think I lived among humans for so long and never knew. Perhaps I shall read up on the best ways to trigger a female ejaculation in humans. Does every human female have one of these?” He flicked it again. Leia yelped involuntarily.

“I mean, I can’t - I assume so? I haven’t done a poll? Most do, anyway.”

“May I?” he gestured at her genitals.

“By all means,” Leia replied, as if she were in any position to decline, and Thrawn began working her clit with his mouth as if it had been a miniature cock. It wasn’t the usual cunnilingus sensation to which she was accustomed, and it felt fantastic. Between the clitoral stimulation and the unspecified number of fingers he had probing her g-spot, Leia came much more quickly and more strongly than she expected to, given the situation.

“I noticed this spongy column of tissue internally,” he said, stroking her g-spot again as she came down from her orgasm. Leia gasped involuntarily. “It feels swollen, more so than it did a minute ago. What is that? Does it have a reproductive function?”

“No, I think it’s also for fun.”

“I do not appreciate joking.”

“I’m not! As far as I know, that’s all it’s for.”

Thrawn raised his eyebrows. “I expect you to be very disappointed by my penis, in terms of novelty. I have a fair notion of the range of human penises and all I can tell you is that it is unusually large, unusually blue, and features an additional, smaller testicle between the two primary testicles.”

Leia choked down a laugh. “I appreciate the warning.”

“Compared to all the intriguing new knobs and buttons I am discovering on your person I imagine you will feel jealous.” This was delivered in a deadpan so thick it had to be an intentional joke. What on earth was Thrawn playing at?

“I’m sure I can cope, Grand Admiral.”

“Please. You are nude in my quarters. Call me Thrawn.”

\--

Thrawn’s penis was as advertised: very large, very blue, and hard, so hard. He left his uniform pants and a thin black undershirt on. “What would you like me to do with this, Thrawn?” Leia asked politely, taking hold of it with a hand that suddenly felt almost impossibly tiny by comparison.

“Surprise me,” he gasped as she tightened her grip.

It crossed her mind to bite down, deck him, and run for it, but she knew she wouldn’t get far enough to make it worth her while with that accursed bodyguard lurking in the corridor. Which, in retrospect, she supposed was exactly why Thrawn had addressed him aloud as they’d entered the room, damn him. She reached out to the Force for strength and took his cock in her mouth.

If his hands were cool, his cock was somehow cooler. But he was right - beyond the size, color, and temperature, it wasn’t all that different from the few human penises she’d known and loved. And she _was_ a little disappointed. Leia did love novelty, and she’d dared to hope that her first time with a nonhuman would be something a bit more unusual. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. She used her left hand to grip his balls, verifying that he did in fact sport a slightly novel and interesting third testicle. Still, it wasn’t a whole new _organ_.

“I see you felt the need to verify my additional testicle.”

“What can I say, I was curious,” she said around his cock.

“Of course you were,” he replied. “Ah! You’re good at this.”

“Thanks,” she replied, renewing her efforts. She’d thought he couldn’t get much harder, but she was wrong. By the time he pulled her off, his dick felt like solid synthstone.

He took his cock straight from her mouth to her slit without discussion. Leia felt ashamed of exactly how ready she felt. Was this slavery or not? How dubious was her consent?

She supposed it all depended on what happened in the event she said no. Which, for a few reasons, Leia Organa felt entirely disinclined to try.

“I have to ask,” she said to Thrawn. “Do you come blue?”

Thrawn quirked his little smile again. “Purple.”

“ _Fascinating_ ,” Leia replied, trying to imitate his tone. “Do you plan to demonstrate that soon?”

“Soon, yes,” he replied absently, pumping away with laser focus. His extraordinary size was taking Leia’s breath away with each thrust. She couldn’t quite feel it as pleasure all the way through - the consent situation didn’t sit right, of course, and Thrawn was a sworn adversary - but if she shut her eyes and tried not to think, the sensation itself was undeniably very nice. She started thinking perhaps she’d have another orgasm when Thrawn made a brief choking sound.

The chiss took a few moments to catch his breath, then placed his softening cock back in his pants, buttoned them up, and said, “Very good. Refresher is that door. You may sleep in here. I will lock the door behind me,” and left.

Leia burst into tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, you caught me, I wrote five chapters as context for Thrawn's delighted reaction to discovering the human clitoris so late in life. I...I don't know what's wrong with me, guys.
> 
> BTW I made up a lot of worldbuilding details in this chapter :)


	3. Chapter 3

The next five nights were much the same. Leia was left alone most of the day. Thrawn or his creepy Noghri bodyguard Tilikh would deliver meals wordlessly at seemingly random intervals. At night, Thrawn would retrieve Leia for a stilted “dinner date” during which occasional flashes of actual personality would be betrayed by one or the other of them, followed by intense, vigorous, unsettlingly pleasurable intercourse and then an impersonal leave-taking that left her in guilty despair.

During the day, she attempted to meditate, trying to reach out to Luke through the force, with no apparent results. She paced. She talked to herself. She began to wish she’d chosen the airlock. This was no way to live.

On night six, over a dinner of some sort of fish Thrawn said was native to Pantora, Leia had more than one glass of wine and found herself asking, “So, where are the cameras in here?”

Thrawn put down his fork. “Cameras? What are you talking about?”

“I assume you’re recording everything, right? For blackmail, or propaganda, or whatever it is you’re planning to do with me.”

“Not at all.”

“Really.”

“I have no idea what you think the purpose of such recordings would be. No wonder your movements fail so spectacularly. You clearly have no head for strategy, and no intelligence apparatus worth the name.” Thrawn took a sip of water and closed his eyes for a moment.

“Of course in holos we present a unified front. But behind closed doors, the men in charge loathe me, to a man. The officers outside my own handpicked crew who report to me do as well. As far as any of them are concerned, it was a shame they ever recovered me. But of course they failed to kill me swiftly enough, word of my continued survival got to my people, and thus they needed to act as though that wasn’t the case, for the sake of maintaining the fragile understanding with the Chiss Ascendancy that has allowed them to maintain bases in the Unknown Regions since the fall of the Empire. As it stands, half the former Empire’s support structure is tensed to spring and devour me whole the second I give them an excuse to do so, and these new First Order maniacs they swept up on their way back to viability are even worse. If any of those people knew I was treating you this way, they would put me to death for treason or espionage.

“As far as anyone knows, I’ve moved you to my quarters for security reasons. Our lot seem to be institutionally incapable of detaining you in a cell for more than a few days, so I took it upon myself to keep a closer watch on you. My staff foiled a rescue attempt the day before yesterday.”

This was the longest single speech Thrawn had ever made to her, but Leia was too thunderstruck by the last revelation to notice. “Who? Who tried to get me out?”

“I have no reason to share that with you.”

“Can you at least tell me - was it Han?”

“I will not entertain these questions any longer.”

Leia sighed. “Well, if it isn’t blackmail and it isn’t propaganda, I’m out of ideas. Are you just planning to keep me here as bait, and hoping eventually every last one of my compatriots fails to rescue me?” Embarrassingly, Leia’s voice broke from emotion as she said this.

“I do not recall agreeing to share my plans with you.”

“I’m sorry,” Leia replied. “I am. It’s just been a hard week, in here all by myself, with nothing to do but try to puzzle out what your angle is.”

Thrawn was silent for a full minute. Leia counted the seconds. Then he heaved a weary sigh.

“Very well. Is it the case that you are Force sensitive?”

Leia didn’t respond.

“Cooperate, Leia,” he hissed, low and steely.

“Why would you think that?”

“I would have been remiss in my duties indeed if I had failed to note the intel gathered in my absence, indicating that your son began his training as a Jedi some time ago, studying under your brother.” Leia froze. “When you were a child, of course there was no Jedi order to seek you out, but that potential does tend to run in families. And, of course, now the whole galaxy knows who your father was.”

“I see.”

“In any case. If you find yourself at a loss for things to occupy you, although I cannot claim to have a Force wielder handy to train you, I have managed to acquire a number of Jedi and Sith texts and holocrons over the years. If that might interest you.”

Expressing an interest would confirm that she was Force sensitive, but Leia couldn’t pass this opportunity up. “It would, thank you.”

“Are you finished? We can retrieve them now, if you would like.”

By way of answer, Leia stood, and Thrawn followed her lead. “This way,” he said, pointing her at a door she’d never been through before and reaching past her with his long arms to open it up.

Leia gasped as she stepped through the door. “You’ve got half the Aldera Cultural Museum reproduced in here!”

“I wish I had been able to visit in person.”

“I’m sure. Too bad about the Empire,” Leia replied bitterly.

“You do not know me well, but I hope you’ve already come to know me well enough to be quite sure I did not support the Death Star project. I would like to believe that if I had been at my post, things would have gone differently for Alderaan, but of course it is a counterfactual now. A tremendous waste, in more ways than I can count,” Thrawn said, his voice low. Then he brightened, as if putting the thoughts out of his mind. “The Force-related items are in my office. I have never been able to learn much from them. The texts are in poor shape, but I include them for completeness, as in some cases they were found with the holocrons and may be necessary companion pieces. Perhaps, if you manage to activate the holocrons, you could enlighten me as to what they are?”

Leia assumed that was an order. “Sure,” she replied as she followed him through the main room to his office in the back. He retrieved a box with a neat handwritten label on the side in a script she didn’t recognize, and handed it to her. Of course Thrawn could write by hand.

“You may go. I need to think.”

Thrawn didn’t come to her room that night.

\--

Leia had never had much success with learning from books. She was a smart woman, but she knew her strengths. After a quick examination of the texts, she concluded only two of them were in languages she could read, and one of those was so old some of the pages were crumbling. The holocrons, on the other hand, were a novel and interesting sort of object.

There were on the order of thirty of them in the box, a mix of Jedi cubes and dodecahedra and Sith tetrahedra. She knew enough to know this was an almost priceless treasure trove, and shook her head wondering how Thrawn had come to acquire them. She lined them all up on her floor in a neat row and sat across with them, her legs crossed. “All right, holocrons,” she said, closing her eyes. “Whaddya got?”

At first, she was disappointed. But after a minute, she felt a sort of deep _thrum_ in the air around her, and as she sat, the thrum took on an unmistakable direction and orientation. Her eyes snapped open. One of the holocrons was _calling_ her, a beat-up Jedi artifact three from the left end of her row. She reached out her hand, not quite able to reach it from where she was sitting, and as she went to stand up, she saw the thing move.

Force powers weren’t unfamiliar to Leia, so this didn’t scare her, but it did startle her. She’d never had much luck moving things with the Force, and she hadn’t had any intention to do it just then. Did the holocrons have volition of their own? Or was this a manifestation of the Living Force, bringing this resource to her? In either case, she reckoned she wouldn’t have to do much meditation to open it, and she was right. Within thirty seconds, she saw it rise and unlock itself, revealing its secrets.

“Greetings,” it said to her, in a deep, resonant voice. A hologram of a bearded man emerged shortly afterwards. “Welcome to a short course on Jedi mind tactics. I am Jedi Master Dooku, an innovator in this area; a number of knights and padawans have prevailed upon me to instruct them in a few of my most useful methods, and for the sake of posterity, I have committed the most elementary of them to the holocron you now hold, and many others to the series that follows.

“I note that you are not formally trained in Jedi techniques. Is this accurate?”

“Yes,” Leia replied, surprised to be able to interact with it.

The hologram paused. “Notwithstanding, after a brief assessment of your mind and abilities, I suspect you will be able to employ these methods profitably and effectively, and possess the necessary mental and emotional control to learn from this holocron. I leave the ethics to you.”

This was surprisingly flexible of the holocron. “Thanks!” Leia replied sarcastically. He inclined his head and continued.

“Colloquially known as the ‘mind trick’, this most basic of the Jedi mind techniques is a simple projection of the will. Let’s try…”

Leia sat with the holocron all day. The technology was stunning. Dooku was able to assign her simple tasks and feel her use of the Force, correcting her and offering tips. When he felt her basic trick was satisfactory and had given her a few ideas of ways to apply it, he said, “I think you’ve completed this first volume within acceptable bounds. Tell me, do you happen to possess Volumes Two through Seven of this mind techniques course?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I’ve got a boatload of holocrons, but I’m not sure what any of them are.”

“From where did you acquire them, may I ask? You are not the typical padawan I tend to meet.”

“The Jedi order is decimated, and has been for many years now. I got these from a highly-placed officer in the First Order Navy. Presumably he looted them from some old temple.”

“First Order…? This is beyond my knowledge. I’m sorry to hear about the Jedi Order. I can’t imagine anyone I knew is still alive.”

“Probably not. Almost nobody survived the purge. Obi-wan Kenobi, you may have known?”

“Obi-wan! He is a youngling to me as I record this holocron. Does he survive?”

“No. I saw him die in battle.”

“A shame.”

“Yes.” Leia sat in meditation for a minute, her mind tired from her first ever full day of training her Force powers. “Master Dooku, is there precedent for a Force sensitive person who only uses mind powers? Do I need to train with a lightsaber to understand the Force?”

“Of course not, child,” the holocron said. “The Jedi and the Sith are combat-focused, and they are the most prevalent of the modern orders. But there are as many ways to wield the Force as there are Force adepts.”

“Thank you for teaching me, Master Dooku. I hope I’ll find more volumes of your mind techniques course in this pile of holocrons.”

“So do I. Farewell,” the hologram said as it blinked out.

\--

When Thrawn came for dinner, Leia was so deep in meditation that he was able to come up and touch her face without her noticing he’d arrived.

“Thrawn,” she said, surfacing like someone waking from sleep. “Hello.”

“Were you able to make any sense of these items?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she replied. She focused her mind and made an attempt. “You will allow me to contact the Resistance.”

“I would not have lasted so long serving the Emperor if I were susceptible to such techniques,” Thrawn said smugly. “The chiss develop a natural defense against that sort of manipulation as part of our puberty. However, I did feel something, a feeling I’ve felt around the Jedi and Sith when they try to use their mind techniques. You learned that from a book?” He offered her a hand to get up from her seated position.

She took it and rose, then staggered, her left foot asleep. “From one of the holocrons, actually.”

“Remarkable. Perhaps as you progress I will lend you some of my soldiers to practice on.”

Leia grimaced. “No thanks.”

“Yet you were willing to experiment on me?”

“That’s different.”

“I do not see how.”

“You’re my captor, not some random enlisted nobody whose commander opted him in. Obviously.”

“Ah. A moral distinction.”

“Yes.”

In the next room, their dinner was waiting. “What kind of food are we having tonight? This isn’t familiar to me,” Leia said, with some surprise in her voice. She felt herself to be fairly knowledgeable about the major cuisines of the galaxy, and these dishes looked entirely unfamiliar, composed almost entirely of ingredients she couldn’t even attempt to identify. The plating of each service was intricate and detailed; she was quite certain she would remember if she had seen such meals before.

“You expressed a curiosity about chiss food; this isn’t what I would consider home-style cooking, but I would imagine that in a chiss restaurant outside the Ascendancy, this sort of human-inflected take is what they might serve, if such a restaurant were to exist.”

Leia was oddly touched. “You’ll have to tell me how good a job your kitchen did.”

“I can tell you already that they used too many spices. It’s seldom possible to smell chiss food from more than a few inches from the plate.” They sat down and tucked in.

“I like this! It’s subtle. What do you usually drink with it?”

“Tea,” Thrawn responded, pouring her a small cup.

Leia took a sip and grimaced involuntarily. It tasted like muddy water. “Mph. Earthy,” she tried to say diplomatically.

“I have never yet met a human who could stomach this tea,” Thrawn said placidly. “I could tell you it is an acquired taste, but that would be inaccurate. You will likely continue to dislike it.”

“We’ll see,” she said, braving another sip. “The second sip is…a bit better?”

“You cannot fool me, Jedi mind trick or no. So, tell me about the holocrons. How do you open them up? I thought I tried every tool in my toolbox, but you seem to have had very little trouble.”

“It’s a cliche, but you just have to use the Force. I didn’t even really exert any effort at all. The holocron came to me and disgorged its secrets.”

“The longer I live, the more I resent Force sensitives,” Thrawn said bitterly. “In Chiss Space, preparation, knowledge, and tactics constitute an absolute and nearly unbeatable advantage. But somehow, here in your side of the universe, no matter how you prepare, you also must court the favor of this implacable Force. Does it have volition? No one can say. Could I speak with it and find out why it persists in thwarting me? Of course not. And yet, plans that seem so beautifully, flawlessly foolproof twist sideways time and again because the Force in its infinite wisdom has decided that the ragtag band of misfits you now call a Resistance deserves to notch another win. It would feel poetic if I were reading it in a story. But as I live it, it just feels _frustrating_.”

“You know the cure for that, though, don’t you?” Leia took another sip of tea, telling herself it really was getting better.

“Yes.”

Leia raised her eyebrows. “Oh really?”

“Defect. Obviously.”

Leia put down the teacup.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m getting old, and my hearing isn’t what it used to be. Could you repeat that?”

“Defect. I’m considering it. Although the fact that you didn’t figure that out before now is a point against.”

Leia’s mind was racing at the possibilities. “You would defect? A Grand Admiral? I hate to say this, but do you know how many ships the Resistance has right now?”

“Seventeen.”

“Of course you do. My god. We - I don’t want to say we would love to have you, because I can think of many _very_ good reasons for skepticism, but it would be a tremendous boost to our cause to have a a mind like yours on board, if you were sincere. Not just for the classified knowledge, but also to give our strategic planning a bit of a boost. As you’ve mentioned, it isn’t my strongest suit, and we don’t have many others doing much better.”

“I’m aware. And yet, in my experience the Force has typically aided you and yours, which seems to count for much. Perhaps I ought to follow its currents and see where they take me, because I see no promising future for myself in the First Order, or what ends up coming after. My influence has never recovered since my return to what used to be Imperial space, as I no longer have the Emperor’s powerful endorsement behind any of my positions, and now that you’ve left the Senate in disgrace to rabble-rouse once more I am sure some embarrassment will be used to marginalize me still further. I never do well in a power-vacuum, infighting situation.”

“Because nobody trusts you. Even now? You’ve been with them for decades.”

“Even now.”

“Thrawn, I say this with as little self-interest as I possibly can: you deserve so much better. I can’t claim to know or like you, but you’re a beyond-solid contributor to any leadership team, and you’ve given them years of your life. If you were human, you’d be _running_ this show, not sitting on the sidelines worrying about your fleet. It’s just simple speciesism, and you’ve given them well beyond enough chances to get over it.”

“I know all this. Even now, many of the most powerful people in the Imperial remnant factions refuse to look me in the eye. I thought results would change their minds, remind them why I had the Emperor’s ear in the first place, and for a time when it became clear they wouldn’t, I felt I was stuck. But at some point one has to consider the sunk cost fallacy. Perhaps I have become a living example of its dangers. At this point my reasons for loyalty to the remains of the Imperial power structure have been almost entirely obsoleted.”

He was serious. Leia couldn’t believe it, but Grand Admiral Thrawn was really thinking of joining the Resistance.

“Would you vouch for me?” Thrawn asked quietly.

Leia thought carefully. “It’s a complex question. You’re someone we would have a hard time trusting, and for good reason. You would not be welcomed with open arms, and my endorsement would count for a lot. It might make the difference between life and death for you.”

“I’m aware.”

“It would have been a lot easier if you hadn’t coerced me into sex.”

“I’m not certain of that.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Thrawn gave a sigh that he probably intended to sound exasperated but which in fact sounded entirely neutral. “Leia, I have extensive experience with humans.”

Leia waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she prompted him, “As do I? Very?”

“It is hard to formulate this in the least offensive possible way. I apologize. It has been my - observation, over the years, that even when humans despise the person having sex with them, even if they aren’t given a choice, the act of repeated intercourse - if it’s pleasure-focused, and not overtly violent - still engenders a sort of intimacy.”

“That’s incredibly messed up, Thrawn.”

“I assumed you would think so. I have not observed the same thing with chiss. It must be some sort of hormonal difference. Or, perhaps the mere existence of the taboo means that you are forced to compensate for its violation by creating a sort of mock intimacy in your mind, which you are unable to distinguish from one upon which you embarked under your own volition. In any case, would you dispute that you have grown more kindly disposed to me over the days we’ve spent together?”

“No,” she began tentatively. “But I don’t think - ”

“Also, more generally: someone once related to me the expression, ‘Fake it till you make it.’ I believe it was commonly used on the planet in Wild Space where he grew up. Have you heard it?”

“I have. It means that if you don’t feel qualified or comfortable in a role, one way to get past it is to pretend you do. The fact that other people treat you as if you belonged there helps you to believe it yourself, for one thing, but there is also some evidence that the mere act of acting-as-if helps to convince one that the thing is true, absent any peer reinforcement.” Leia neglected to mention that her whole life sometimes felt like one big “fake it till you make it.”

“Precisely. I have seen, with other humans, that even _involuntarily_ faking it - for example, being forced to act content in a career for which one never asked - can help lead one to eventual acceptance, and even enjoyment, of that same role.”

“And you hoped that my acting would accomplish this?”

“I thought it was worth the experiment, anyway.”

“That’s all well and good, Thrawn, and I do hope you’ve learned a lot from this experience that you can carry forward into more successfully manipulating other prisoners, congratulations, but - ”

“But you feel there were other ways to achieve this intimacy, ways that did not break your taboo.”

“I suppose that was what I was going to say, yes.” It bothered her that Thrawn considered her objection to this sort of sexual coercion to be due to a taboo rather than an ironclad law of sentient interaction, but she had to take his word for it that this was a sincerely held belief.

“You are of course entitled to your opinion. However, I felt time was of the essence, and this method had the highest probability of achieving my goals efficiently.”

“Remind me of those goals, as you conceived of them?”

“There were several.” Thrawn counted on his fingers, a charmingly human gesture under the circumstances. “First, I had to understand the lengths to which you personally would go to keep the Resistance a going concern. Would you place familial loyalty - your marriage - above the cause, as its de facto leader? Second, I needed to ascertain whether the rumors of your Force sensitivity were true, and if so, just how strong you were and whether you had the capacity to learn formal skills in that area given the materials and time. Third, I needed to move our dynamic from adversarial to at least cordial. And fourth, I hoped to verify my intelligence about the size of the Resistance fleet.”

Leia slapped herself on the forehead. “What an _idiot_. I should never have confirmed it.”

“And last week, would you have?”

Leia shook her head slowly. “No. I would have kept my guard up.”

“Precisely.”

Leia thought for a minute. “I still don’t concede that it was the sex.”

“And yet. Tell me, Leia. If a dear friend mentioned to you that I was courting them, and wondered aloud whether I would be worth pursuit as a partner in coitus, how would you react?”

Leia barked a loud laugh. “I’d encourage them to report back about whether you were blue all over, I suppose, not letting on about my own knowledge on the matter. Assuming that dear friend was not in prison aboard a Star Destroyer commanded by our mutual blue friend with me, you understand.”

“I consider that an overall excellent performance review.”

“Be that as it may. I’d still rather you’d gone about it differently.”

“I understand. But tell me, Leia: hasn’t it been at least a little bit more pleasant than the alternatives one might propose as a means of extracting the information I needed to extract?”

Leia made a noncommittal gesture. But she had to admit to herself that it had been.

\--

“So when are you defecting, Grand Admiral,” Leia asked over a chilly dessert, a sort of sweet yogurt frozen into a slush and studded with small, sour dried fruits, with the slightest hint of spice, so subtle she might have been imagining it.

“I still have not made a final decision.”

“What more information do you need?”

“In the next few days I should receive a decision about a personnel project I proposed. If it is approved, I will likely remain in my post for at least a few standard months, and conveniently allow one of your rescue missions to spirit you away. If it is rejected, which I expect given the current political climate, I shall permit one of your rescue missions to take me hostage.”

“I see.” Leia smiled behind her hand. “Won’t your crew try to rescue you?”

“I note you already know better than to expect the Navy command apparatus to attempt it. Why do you think my crew would?”

“I haven’t gotten much chance to walk around the ship, but I’ve been on enough big ships with Imperial tyrants in command to know the vibe. This isn’t a ship where people feel put upon or devalued. Your crew respect you. I suspect the ones who work most closely with you even like you.”

“Astute. I agree, there are some among my crew who might attempt to rescue me, although overall I would say I have not commanded this crew for long enough for most of them to have developed the level of loyalty required. But I will ensure they do not succeed.”

“How?”

“I can recommend a number of secure locations where your rescue squad can take me where my crew will not follow.”

“How do I know you aren’t leading us into a trap?”

Thrawn looked at her, his face expressionless. “What sort of trap would be an improvement on my current situation? I already have the leader of the Resistance in captivity, performing highly competent sexual favors nightly and providing occasionally stimulating conversation as a bonus. With each day on board, she becomes more competent with the Force and more kindly disposed towards me; given the proper incentives, I might be able to develop my own Force-adept enforcer, which would be an absolute coup in this day and age. But if the possibility failed to materialize, at any time, I could turn you over to my political leadership and have you put to death or worse. If I were anyone other than myself, I’d certainly get a promotion for that. As I am, I’d likely get a commendation and a generous cash bonus to spend on the leave I’ve been owed for the last few standard decades but have never had a moment to take. What reason do I have to put that status at risk?”

Leia thought for a minute, but she knew she was grasping at straws. “You could be trying to destroy one of our few ships? It could be a suicide mission; you have a death wish and want to take the Resistance’s best hope with you when you go.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I don’t. So help me, I believe you’re sincere. Perhaps I’ll come to regret it.”

“Perhaps you shall.” Thrawn’s subtle little smile danced at the corners of his mouth. “To bed, do you think?”

“Why not,” Leia said casually, wishing she felt guiltier, wishing she hated this more.

\--

Something had changed between them.

No, it was more complex than that. Something had changed between them, and Leia had changed, and Thrawn had changed. An intense day of Force-focused mental work and meditation had left Leia in an unusually centered and almost carefree mood, despite her circumstances. She reached out to the Force as they walked together through the door to Thrawn’s guest quarters and felt a strange, uncanny joy there. And she knew where it was from. Thrawn felt wanted and liked, truly. He could tell she wasn’t entirely acting. And the comfort was beaming out of him like a beacon in the Force.

Nothing about this was love, of course. More like regard, mutual respect, and the guarded seeds of trust. But they were approaching this chamber like lovers, and they both knew it, and knew the other knew it.

“Will you be able to look your husband in the eyes, do you think,” Thrawn said quietly.

“He’ll understand.”

“You’ll tell him?”

“Eventually,” she clarified. “Once your status is sorted. He _will_ understand, Thrawn.” Their marriage had weathered worse.

“It isn’t anything to me.”

She unbuttoned his trousers and took him in her hand. “Then why do you ask?”

“I am curious. I am not terribly familiar with how humans negotiate this sort of thing.”

“Have you ever been married, or - otherwise committed? Are you now?”

“Not relevant.”

Of course it was relevant. But if he wasn’t comfortable talking about it, Leia didn’t dare to press the point. “As you say,” she said, as she commenced rolling her tongue around the head of his cock.

“I did not expect - ah!” Thrawn gasped as she licked swiftly up his shaft, then swirled down.

“What was that?”

“Nothing. Please, continue.” She did. “And remove your clothes.” She continued giving him head as she removed the loose tunic she had been wearing in his rooms, and shook her hair out of the wide bun she’d had it in. It occurred to her that she hadn’t worn shoes in almost a week.

“Enough of this. Your turn,” he said, picking her up as if she were nearly weightless, depositing her on the bed and snapping off her trousers. With those thin, strong, cold fingers on her g-spot and his cool, dark mouth running up and down her clit, Leia rode through two shuddering, toe-curling orgasms in rapid succession before begging him to stop and let her take a breath.

“It strikes me as almost unbelievably decadent that human women can just continue with orgasm after orgasm like this,” Thrawn remarked as if he’d been discussing a particularly irritating military decision.

“Jealous?” Leia smirked.

“Of course,” he replied. “And I feel I’ve failed you in not figuring out how to enable you to ejaculate. I read some journal articles about it, but did not discover any conclusive best method.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I heard it’s a myth anyway.”

“No, it seems to be a real phenomenon. But like many of the sexual responses of the human female, it is not well understood by science. Why is that, do you think?”

How funny that this was a sincere question. For someone who had lived so long among humans, someone who had such a notorious eye for detail and nuance, there were many things Thrawn had never bothered to understand. Perhaps it wasn’t as necessary if one only ever had sex with other men and mostly only ever had conversations with other men, or women who’d learned from years of being in rooms filled entirely with men to act and talk like men to get along.

“Mm, it’s the patriarchy, Thrawn,” Leia cooed sarcastically. “Would you shut up and fuck me, though?”

“The patriarchy?” he mused as he positioned his cock at her opening. “What is _that_ ,” he asked, almost to himself, as he thrust in. It occurred to Leia to wonder whether he would look it up later.

She allowed herself to enjoy the sensation of his large, hard member stretching her. But when she opened her eyes and glanced up at his face and saw how he looked off into the middle distance as he pounded away, she suddenly felt unaccountably sad for him. She reached up with her right hand and smoothed one thumb along his high, sharp cheekbone. “Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” she whispered, her accent careful, and met his glowing eyes.

He caught his breath, thrusted twice, and came like a man possessed, collapsing onto her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm at "post chapter 5 before I leave on vacation...OR DIE TRYING" mental place right now. So if you don't see ch5 before Friday please remember me fondly, as I will assuredly be dead. 
> 
> Or...tbh maybe just packing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather short last chapter, but I did it!

It took Thrawn a minute to catch his breath and collect his wits. Leia expected him to dress himself and give her his usual brusque regards as he rushed out the door. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the bed, nude except for the regulation black undershirt. “My apologies,” he said. “I recognize that was rather - abrupt.”

“Not at all.”

“It has been surprisingly pleasant having you as a guest.”

Leia gave him a wry smile. “I am, in fact, a prisoner.”

“Notwithstanding,” Thrawn replied, as if to him there was no real distinction to be made. “Would you like me to stay in here for the night? Are you lonely?”

“I - no,” Leia replied. “No, I’m not lonely. I often sleep alone; Han and I both do a lot of traveling.” A thought suddenly occurred to her. “But of course, if you’d _like_ to spend the night - ”

“No, no,” Thrawn hurriedly replied, getting up and pulling on his trousers, and draping his uniform jacket crisply over his forearm. “Nothing of the sort.”

“Good night, Thrawn,” Leia said sleepily to him, sliding under the covers as he stepped out.

“Good night, princess,” he replied quietly, closing the door behind him.

\--

Leia didn’t see Thrawn for a few days after that. He had gourmet meals brought to her at appropriate intervals, and left her with his holocron collection. Leia worked her way through three more of Master Dooku’s mind techniques tutorial holocrons and a set of guided meditations led by a Togruta Jedi Knight who didn’t give her name. She hoped Thrawn would let her bring the holocrons with her when they left. But even if he didn’t, she was thankful to have had this quiet time to study a few of them, confident that she was better equipped to explore her capabilities on her own now that she’d gotten a chance to try them out with a tutor.

Just when she was beginning to worry about Thrawn, he turned up in the mid afternoon looking harried. “The unexpected has occurred, and all at once,” he said, a strange mix of dismay and pleasure in his usually unexpressive voice.

“Which unexpected?” Leia asked, her meditation interrupted.

“My personnel proposal has been provisionally approved.”

“Ah,” Leia replied. “The Force working in mysterious ways, as usual.”

“I expect it is,” Thrawn replied, his voice bitter. “And as if that weren’t unexpected enough, my bridge crew informed me two minutes ago that the Millennium Falcon is inbound. I leave you to guess what it might be attempting.”

“That cocky _idiot_ ,” Leia hissed. “Why would he come in such a recognizable ship?”

“I believe you answered that question before you asked it. But you know him better than I,” Thrawn observed. “In any case, this is our chance to return you to your cohorts. Are you ready to leave?”

“You’re really letting me go?”

Thrawn huffed an offended grunt. “I said I would. And, please, take the holocrons.”

“Why?” Leia asked suspiciously, feeling guilty that she’d been thinking about asking him to let her have them now that she knew he wasn’t coming along.

“I have no use for them,” he said with a magnanimous wave of his hand. “And in any case, I do not expect to stay here forever. All my observations still hold. This personnel project may make a big difference, or it may make no difference at all, more likely, in which case I will contact you at some later date.”

“At which point you would like for me to be more adept with the Force than I currently am, and hope I’ll mention to the rest of the Resistance howit was I came by these holocrons.” Leia made a note to grapple with exactly how huge a betrayal of the First Order it was for Thrawn to enable the leader of the Resistance to become adept with Force techniques such as these. It was the clearest evidence she had of his intentions; his heart had already left the First Order, and any additional time he spent with them was to fulfill his own sense of professional pride by seeing his commitments through.

“Precisely. I suspect one or two of them are fairly priceless for being some of the only known resources on Jedi battle meditation in the galaxy - at least, that was what I was led to understand. I believe you would be a natural. It would behoove you to investigate.”

Leia had the sudden, insane thought that she was taking orders from Grand Admiral Thrawn and refrained from giving an ironic salute. “I will, thank you.” She paused. “Did you have a plan for how I’m supposed to make it onto the Falcon? I can’t imagine you want to walk up and hand me off yourself.”

“Hardly,” Thrawn replied. “I’ve come up with a pretext for you to need to be temporarily transferred back to the brig. Tilikh will take you there, as I’m needed urgently on the bridge. As you exit turbolift three, an alarm from a coolant leak will distract him briefly, and he will drop his hold on you and turn right. At the same time, you wrench yourself away from him, go left, and run down the corridor. It will be guarded by a single trooper. You mind trick this trooper into removing your restraints and giving you his blaster. From there, you have only a few dozen meters of hallway between you and shuttle bay three, where the Millennium Falcon is currently being pulled in by tractor beam. I trust you can shoot your way through. Most of the troopers in the area will already have been pulled in to deal with the coolant leak.”

“You’re good,” Leia grinned. “Sure hope my mind trick is up to it. Maybe I should have experimented on those subordinates of yours after all. How about that tractor beam?”

“Tragically, the coolant leak in question will disable our aft tractor beam control system for up to seventeen minutes, during which time the beams will be operating at low power only. From my understanding, very few ships of Corellian make would be hindered much by a low-power tractor beam. Assuming the Millennium Falcon is in its usual form, it ought to be able to shake loose.”

“You just can’t catch a break, Thrawn,” Leia quipped. “Once again we Rebel scum slip through your fingers.”

“It appears to be the will of the Force,” Thrawn deadpanned, cool as ice. A tapping knock sounded at the door. “That will be Tilikh. Your holocrons,” he said, producing a brown sack with a drawstring. “Tilikh will carry them until you part.”

“Is he in on the plan?”

“Of course,” Thrawn replied. “He would never be distracted from a prisoner transfer by something so trifling as a coolant leak. He was rather offended I suggested it. Naturally his job is to make sure the first attempt to fix it is botched.”

“Tilikh puts up with a lot from you, doesn’t he?”

“He does, yes,” Thrawn replied. They were both quiet for a long beat.

“So, I guess this is goodbye?” She took his hand, and he squeezed hers back, almost too hard.

“For now,” Thrawn agreed.

“But you’ll find a way to get in touch?”

“I will. Eventually. Not imminently.”

“Take care of yourself, Mitth’raw’nuruodo. May the Force be with you.”

“You as well.”

He reluctantly let go of her hand and opened the door.


End file.
